a blog about perfume

Donna Karan Pure DKNY ~ perfume review

Donna Karan's new Pure DKNY fragrance is reportedly built around a "drop of vanilla in water" — and not just any drop of vanilla, mind you, but a drop of vanilla ethically sourced from a women's agriculture project in Uganda; as part of a collaborative project with CARE, "nearly 1,000 women [in Uganda] will gain new business skills".1 The packaging is recyclable, and the outer box uses low-VOC inks on certified forest paper. All of that environmental and humanitarian goodness, hopefully, will help the end consumer to relax and enjoy their purchase: Pure DKNY notes that in today's fast-paced world, "you need a moment of calm, to find beauty in living simply".

The "calm" and "living simply" evoked by Pure DKNY, mind you, is a very modern sort of "calm" and "living simply" — the opening smells entirely synthetic, and recalls any number of FRESH FRESH FRESH fragrances of the past 10+ years. I believe Donna Karan is calling Pure DKNY a floral, but Michael Edwards classifies it as a fresh water and that's a better fit: in case you didn't take me seriously when I said FRESH FRESH FRESH, let me say it again — this is a very fresh fragrance, and it's rather loud about it in the early stages. The floral notes are transparent, watery and vague, and for the most part, front-loaded: they don't really last long into the dry down.

What's left after an hour is something of a skin scent: pale wood, musk, a bit of vanilla. It's soft and only lightly sweet, and it's got an almost-powdered, velvety finish. It's still terribly clean — it teeters on the edge of laundry-detergent / dryer sheet territory, although it doesn't have the harsh edge of some such fragrances. I have seen a few complaints about the lasting power, but I found it quite good; the vanilla skin musk part makes it through most of the day.

The Pure DKNY fragrance is a good fit with the Pure DKNY fashion range, which is all about casual, relaxed comfort (Donna Karan has explained the inspirations for the Pure DKNY line with references to yoga and her weekends in the Hamptons). So, let's say you want a very clean, eco-friendly perfume, but you're not really a granola cruncher — you want your clean, eco-friendly perfume to come from a department store, and you want it to have a designer name on it, and you're not particularly interested in a natural product. Voilà, here it is.

Pure DKNY is pleasant and likable; although if you don't like aggressively clean fragrances, you might find it more so after the first hour has passed. If you're after something clean and casual, it's worth a shot, although I don't think it's likely to excite many perfumistas either way.

I bought this unsniffed (no testers available) at DutyFree in Lima, Peru this past March. I am so glad I did not spritz this on while inside the plane!

When I got home, I opened the box, took out the perfume and applied a liberal 2 spritzes on my wrists. JAYSUS! To my nose, this was the “grittiest” vanilla I have ever smelt. It was so strong and that was shocking because of the PURE part of the name. I did not find it clean or casual at all. It was like Vanilla on a Hot Dirt Road with no water in sight.

That is why I am glad I did not spritz this one while flying. My fellow passengers are probably glad also.

LOL. I don’t mind the sound of “a drop of vanilla in water”… and I don’t always mind “clean” either (Gentiane Blanche, I mean you).

However, this sounds a bit too much like that nasty L’Eau Serge Lutens, which I hated. I don’t know, maybe that kind of thing is well suited to a very hot, humid summer in one’s Hamptons beach cottage… Still, I will gladly sniff if I cross Pure’s path.

I love this bit of your review, so thank you:
“So, let’s say you want a very clean, eco-friendly perfume, but you’re not really a granola cruncher — you want your clean, eco-friendly perfume to come from a department store, and you want it to have a designer name on it, and you’re not particularly interested in a natural product. Voilà…”

I just replied to a query on this from Ann S under the Cashmere Mist Liquid Nude thread but I will reiterate it here: I sprayed this and smelled pretty much nothing. I agree with the detergent description – it makes me think of washing up suds that you are washing cupcake pans and frosting bowls in. Not offensive but meh.

Me too. It wasn’t loud on me at all, it was very soft and harmonic skin scent, and I liked it. I think it can be an ideal scent for the days when I (or somebody with a similar skin chemistry) don’t want to smell “perfumed” but don’t want to be fragranceless (and feel “naked”) either. Ideal for a job interview, too, or when you want not very “womanly” women’s frag.

AnnSsays:

22 June 2010 at 4:01 pm

What serendipity!! I was *just* asking about this!! Thanks for the review Robin. It was likely this would not be my thing. I’ll save my pennies for the Prada eau Ambree or the Balenciaga Paris, which I think has an old fashioned cold cream/lotion “in my glamorous bathroom” vibe. Clean enough for me!! It’s a funny concept too on the heels of the super fun skank thread!

Yes, when I tested Paris, I immediately had some sort of out of body experience full of luscious and mysterious “pots” of creams, vanity mirrors, lush bathrobe, towels, etc… some glorious marble floor, a large vaaas of flowers, an enormous old fashioned claw foot tub…… and all this just to get ready for my butler to serve me breakfast with my best linens, crystal, etc…..

Oh, those are great examples, thanks Joe. This does smell more obviously synthetic than either of those. I hate to use the word synthetic this way — I don’t think synthetic = bad, in fact you can build a perfectly good fragrance with nothing else, and for that matter there are plenty of synthetic notes that smell like natural materials. But there’s a kind of generic, department store sort of “smells like mid-range designer perfume” smell that I think most of us know immediately. It’s definitely synthetic but of course that isn’t the whole point. We need a better word.

You and Joe beat me to this. I would have listed Do Son, Vanille Galante, and yes – the Jo Malone (must wear that soon!). I’d add Neil Morris Rainflower and Spirit of Water. It’s a rare type, and one that works really well in humid heat, IMO.

Har har… this is referred to as hippie chic, yes? A contradiction in terms. At least it doesn’t go for $5 a ml. Are you familiar with the Rich Hippie line? Those were ridiculously priced, never smelled them because I was so annoyed by that concept.

I only tried this on test strip and I didnt really smell much. I had already sprayed stuff 4 other scents on my arms so I couldnt put Pure on. Test strips really r no help. Is it citrusy fresh at all in the top? My sis wants a new summer scent and want vanilla in it and I thought this would be perfect!!! I’ll have to go back to Nordstrom & try it on skin. Did u try it at Nordstrom Robin? Did u try the new Dior Escale aux Marquises? , I only tried it on test strip like a dork!! I was really looking forward to trying it!!! : (

Thanks, R, for reassuring me that there is a blast of SYNTHETIC at the start. I couldn’t match up the ‘Pure’, and ‘the drop of vanilla’ with the great hot explosion of Big Chemicals I got. I also don’t get much vanilla; it must be masked by all the fake flowers. I felt that this was one where the PR and the juice just didn’t match up?

The vanilla is later, you must wait through the synthetic freshness + synthetic flowers.

I don’t know. I mean, I do think it matches up in a way, just maybe not the way you or I would like…to me, it fits quite well with the ad (expensive NY apt, everything in white, “hippie-chic” clothes by a NY designer). It’s purity from a fashion/lifestyle congomerate.

I so wanted to like this because I’m really interested in ethically and sustainably produced fragrance and it seemed wonderful that a mainstream and influential fragrance house had taken up that challenge. I even told my young son that if I liked it, I would buy it in the spot. But alas, no. I liked the opening. But it dried down to something that reminded me of tobacco. I’m sure it’s not tobacco, just the woody note, but that’s what my brain registered, and not in a good way. That tobacco note then lasted for ages and ages. Sigh.

If anyone knows where else I might look for ethically produced fragrance, I’d love to hear.

I hate to be cynical, but you know, it’s just one note that they’re claiming they’ve ethically sourced. Of course, there might not be any other naturals in the blend, so it might not matter unless you’re worried about how eco-friendly all the synthetics are.

Still, if you’re looking for companies that make a practice of using sustainable, ethically-sourced materials and reasonably eco-conscious packaging, the one that pops to my mind is Lush, and then of course there are many smaller indie natural brands that do the same.

Oh do please be cynical. I always am. (Could the women who grow the vanilla actually afford to buy the finished perfume, for instance. And would they want to?) Still, I thought Pure represented a good initiative.

Thanks for mentioning Lush. I have to say tho’ that it has a shop at my local mall and the collective smell of all those amazing soaps can be discerned almost as you walk in the far end of building. And staff and customers all seem to be under the age of 21. But I’ll have another look!

Body Shop also offers “fair trade” materials, and some of their stuff (white musk, moroccan rose) is not bad at all. You could also look at smal niche lines like Possets, many of which make contributions to worthy causes.

I *think* Pacifica are not tested on animals? Unless you are starting from scratch with organic essential oils, or can afford for DSH, et. al, to make you something organic from scratch, most fragrances are going to be not organic or have a handful of ingredients that are not organic. There is a bunch of info online about this if you google organic pefume. And some of the other blogs have done posts on the topic the past few years.

Well, I have to say I like the idea too…not knocking the idea of helping some women in Uganda move out of poverty, assuming it works that way. It’s far better than nothing. And agree about Lush — those stores are smelly, and so far, the company’s best perfumes were under their now-gone sister label, B Never Too Busy.

I do think we’ll see more & more efforts like this. There was the Hugo Boss “plant a tree” edition, and lots of others that aren’t coming to mind right know.

Even though contrasts are refreshing and probably widely used in perfumery without me even noticing, already the idea of pushing both vanilla and the ” fresh” perfume (the “pure”) kinda struck me as not matching. I tried it anyways because I test most new releases out of curiousity, but apart from that I did not like it so much because of the “fresh” notes, it also has a headache-undertone like unfortunately all DK-fragrances have for me, even the one I really really like: Cashmere Mist.

I actually like clean, light scents, expecially in summer, but dread the synthetic “feel” of most of them. SL’s L’eau isn’t bad at first but then it just smells like ironing…I don’t like ironing…. I’ll sniff this and see if it’s my HG of “fresh” but I’m doubting it.

This one was wildly popular around the Sephoras here (central Europe) for weeks, but I couldn’t bring myself to try it because I was being shallow that day and the name and bottle bored me.

If this was named, “Bazaar in Aswan,” or “Midnight in the Garden of Gardenia and Eucalyptus,” then perhaps things would have ended different, but the name and the entire image surrounding it left me apathetic before I even sniffed, and the description here hasn’t helped.

I’m still a bit new at this, and it’s incredible what a huge world perfume is when you first discover it Several years ago I might have bought this if I had run out of my own perfume and wanted to get my shopping over with… But now it seems like such a waste to plunk down money on vanilla and watery floral notes when there are things out there that smell like incense and metal

This sounds hideous, and I laughed my way through most of your review. So, smooches for that. You are at your very best when you are playing straight (wo)man. Nobody damns with faint praise like you, R!!!

Of course, it does make me sad that this is from the woman who had the vision (cojones?) to give us Chaos, the original DK Woman, Gold…

Which reminds me – I’ve been trying to find a link that I think Robin posted a few months ago to a YouTube video of a British comedian who was explaining the dumbing down of everything as the result of marketing people deciding to play to naive tastes. Does anyone remember which post that was in?

Oh, that was Craig Ferguson! I went looking, & most unfortunately it has been removed from YouTube…you might try the CBS site, I don’t know if they keep all his shows online or not. That was hysterical.

We all have our own specialties, LOL…but I do think they do a better job with the “Donna Karan Beauty” line than with the “DKNY” line…this one not geared so young as many of the DKNY scents have been lately, I’ll give it that, but still think they could have done a better job with the concept.

I like this but I didn’t smell any vanilla in it.
it smells to me of when you change your bed sheets and the first time you sleep in them when they’ve been washed. would love to wear it to sleep but too expensive just for bed :/

Hmmm. I received this as a gift, and I like it. I’ve received several compiments on it, and my boyfriend likes it, too. Guess we aren’t very sophisticated then, are we. Oh well. I also like the new Bobbi Brown fragrance, Party. Will you be reviewing that soon? Sorry to be so American. That seems to be frowned upon here. Incidentally, I do have more than a few higher-end European designers in my collection. Love them dearly, but I like these, too. So gauche.

If you read through all the reviews, you’ll discover that I like any number of “unsophisticated” fragrances too…we all have different tastes, and we do not frown on each others’ tastes. We do, however, write honest reviews, so if we don’t like something we say so, and we say why. If you don’t enjoy hearing negative things about a fragrance you like, you might be happier not reading reviews here.

As near as I can tell, there are as many dull fragrances by high end European designers as American designers …. no surprise since they’re all made by the same perfumers at the same perfume companies. Donna Karan has made some incredible fragrances — Chaos, Black Cashmere — but personally I don’t think this is one of them.

I realize I probably sounded a bit snarky in my post. For that I apologize. I enjoy your blog, and always come here when I’m interested in finding out what people have to say about a fragrance in which I am newly interested. In fact, I purchased Hermes Kelly Caleche based on reviews here. (It’ s just “ok” for me.) Guess I was just responding to what I perceived to be some pretention. It’s a free country. We are all entitled to our opinions. Thank you for your response.